How Alibaba turns wealthy shopaholics into a marketing squad

Rolled out about two years ago, APASS has helped Alibaba persuade the well-heeled shoppers trolling its Tmall and Taobao shopping emporiums to keep spending.Bloomberg | November 19, 2016, 08:25 IST

Meng Cui Yi spent almost $90,000 at Alibaba’s online mall in the past year. The 33-year-old restaurateur buys pretty much everything there—Burberry apparel, La Mer skincare products, furniture, groceries and more. After Alibaba’s annual Singles' Day sale last year, Meng’s purchases were piled so high outside her Shanghai apartment her businessman husband could barely get in the door.

Meng’s lavish spending habits earned her an invite to Alibaba Passport, or APASS. An exclusive rewards programme, APASS is a mashup of Facebook, Amazon Prime and the American Express Black Card. Its 100,000 members get the usual perks—deals, trips, personal service—but are also encouraged to join online communities of shopaholics who blog and talk up Alibaba.

Rolled out about two years ago, APASS has helped Alibaba persuade the well-heeled shoppers trolling its Tmall and Taobao shopping emporiums to keep spending. Like any premium rewards programme, APASS pushes exclusivity by setting a seemingly high bar for membership. To make the cut, a customer must drop more than $15,000 a year on Alibaba’s ecommerce sites.

Shoppers also receive a user score, based in part on the frequency and credibility of their interaction with other customers. The higher the score, the more likely they are to be invited to join APASS.

Rewards buy loyalty and then are turned into marketing opportunities. In September, Alibaba took 10 APASS members on an all-expenses paid, nine-day vacation to Italy where they visited a Maserati factory, La Perla’s flagship lingerie store and vineyards operated by vintner Mezzacorona.

Portions of the all-expenses-paid trip were streamed live on the Tmall app and Youku Tudou. The company says the vineyard tour was viewed 400,000 times and boosted sales. Public displays of loyalty from its most elite customers also could help Alibaba buff a reputation hurt by revelations that some of the goods it sells are knockoffs.